Practice Report: Thunder rolling toward history

The Oklahoma City Thunder did not have a formal practice today but most all of the players showed up at the INTEGRIS Thunder Development Center to get some shots up, workout and watch film

Head coach Scott Brooks met with reporters and again was amazed at the crowd that welcomed the team charter home from San Antonio VERY early this morning.

“It was great, it’s amazing that they’re out there that late (early?) you never get tired of that.”

About 500 people were at the airport hoping this will be the last time the welcome a flight home from San Antonio, fans are hoping tomorrow night’s game at The Peake will close out the series and bring the NBA Finals to Oklahoma City.

Thunder players and coaches though will not change their approach nor their preparation.

“It’s not something we just say, it’s something we believe in, it’s one game, one day and you have to focus on that,” Brooks said, “it’s always the first to four in a series, we have three games so we have one more to go. We have a great opportunity we’re on our home floor but that doesn’t guarantee automatic victory. They’re no gonna just give us the game.”

After losing the first two games of the series the Thunder have been doing all the taking, taking it right to the Spurs and San Antonio hasn’t been able to come up with answers that work.

Still Brooks expects to get whatever best shot the Spurs have left.

“They’re a good team, they’re talented, they’re deep, they have great experience, they’re gonna play hard like they always do and we’re gonna play hard like we always do. Both of us are trying to figure out ways to play better.”

After those two losses Brooks and his players said that would be the main adjustment they would need to make, just play better and everything would work out. Of course Brooks tossed in some coaching moves too that have helped right what had appeared to be a sinking ship but mostly it has come down to the Thunder simply playing better than the Spurs in these last three games.

“We’ve done a good job with that the last few games,” Brooks admitted, “and we should continue to improve and to get better. These are young guys and they should get better and they will get better because they work extremely hard and they care about each other.”

Amazingly as the playoffs have unfolded two of the Thunder’s biggest problem areas during the regular season, a lack of assists and a surplus of turnovers, have apparently been solved. The team is taking care of the basketball and sharing it too. Role players have stepped up, different ones most every night. Thabo with his 19 points and six assists one night. The Thunder bigs looking like the Big 3 the next. Daequan Cook coming off the bench where he’s been sitting the whole series to nail two 3-pointers and score eight points in the span of four minutes.

It has been an amazing sight to see.

“Our guys they have really high expectations of themselves both individually and as a team. We don’t talk about it, we don’t pound our chests, we don’t tell everybody how good we are. We feel our worth is through our work and if we continue to work hard and play together we’re gonna have some good results.”

The best result so far might very well come tomorrow night when the Thunder can close out the mighty Spurs and bring the biggest event Oklahomans have ever seen to Sooner State soil…the NBA Finals.

SCOTT BROOKS

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I think they could review all games for flops. AN obvious act to decieve a ref should result in a fine on review, and two in one game cause automatic 1 game suspension. Start that rule today and flopping ends tomorrow.

Pop used an interesting and very accurate phrase last night in one of his post-game interviews: "they (OKC) are out-competing us."
The Thunder may or may not be the "better team" top to bottom, but being "better" and "younger" doesn't guarantee a win. Competing harder almost always does.

If we win a championship this year, does that mean we become a bigger market team? What factors are needed to become a bigger market team? (ie. more luxury boxes at the Peake, more commericals/street ball highlights from Kevin durant, more fashion from James harden and Westbrook).

Which ultimately can lead to a higher salary cap and keeping our core players.

Flops are part of the game. The only thing that should be done is for the refs to study game tapes of players, and be a lot more conservative in giving known floppers calls. Flopping would stop if known floppers were a lot less likely to get calls when they were legitmently hit or fouled.

@Crownme I'd go more for a Tech along the lines of a Defensive 3 seconds. Suspensions or throwing players out after two flops seems excessive, but giving your opponent a free point for every flop would put an end to flopping much faster than any fine would.

@criznazy53 Like they said, market size is literally the geographic population around your team. Being a "big market team" makes it easier for the franchise to make money (more fans), but it has no effect whatsoever on your salary cap. The NBA sets the salary cap, and every team has to follow it. It's a "soft cap" which means you can exceed it for certain circumstances, but not by a lot. That's why there is no "New York Yankees of the NBA" -- everyone's salary cap is the same.

@criznazy53 The size of your market is how many people live in the area your team is viewed. E.G New York is a big market, OKC is small market. Now, in football Green Bay is a very small market (100,000 people in the city) but are the most widely popular team in America, thus their fan base is large, and are technically a larger market. I'm sure if we win multiple championships there will be bandwagoners who watch the games and purchase jerseys, etc. But as of now, we are a very small market. But it doesn't matter too much.

@Crownme Deception is tough thing to police. Especially in the trenches with super athletes. But there are some that are hugely obvious and I think if there was a foul in place that the refs could call it would restore the balance between selling legitimate contact and exaggerating little or no contact.

2 cases: 1) nick's charges - how often does he get hit hard enough to fall down? How often would he get the call if he doesn't fall down?

2) Parker last night when stripped of the ball. had time to look back at ball before he flailed to try and solicit a foul.

fine line, like most human officiated things, but the penalty for the flopping is what restores the balance.

@ThunderBelize But the flagrnts are sort of controlled fine with that. Fine them for one and suspend them for more than one, I don't care if it's the NBA Fianls Game 7 and it's LeBron or Kobey or KD - deception should NOT be part of this.

@Jooseppi What's crazy is even in big cities you can be considered a small market team. Just look at our opponent, the Spurs. They play in the 4th or 5th largest city in the US and are still considered a small market team.

@criznazy53 Oakland is right next to San Francisco and so are the San Jose Earthquakes. That would be like saying the Anaheim Ducks are small market because Anaheim does have fewer people thank OKC. But it's in metro area of the second largest city in the country.

@criznazy53 There's nothing implicitly restricting the team from keeping both. The issue is paying the luxury tax, a penalty associated with going over certain amounts of the salary cap. It's easier for large market teams to pay these penalties because in general they have more revenue.

The Laker's regional TV deal this season got them $30 million. OKC doesn't get close to that for their FS Oklahoma deal.

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[…] Royce Young of the Daily Thunder: “Amazingly as the playoffs have unfolded two of the Thunder’s biggest problem areas during the regular season, a lack of assists and a surplus of turnovers, have apparently been solved. The team is taking care of the basketball and sharing it too. Role players have stepped up, different ones most every night. Thabo with his 19 points and six assists one night. The Thunder bigs looking like the Big 3 the next. Daequan Cook coming off the bench where he’s been sitting the whole series to nail two 3-pointers and score eight points in the span of four minutes.” […]